Summary: A red colored area is present on the left portion of the frontal bone of the mesolithic man from Loschbour. After a preliminary report of the bio-anthropological study of the skeleton, with genetic typing of mitochondrial DNA, we present our attempts to determine the nature of the pigment, by the methods of Raman spectroscopy and elemental analysis by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Ochre is proven, and its presence is discussed.

How can anyone know where the mtDNA haplogroups originated if no effort is made to find out the haplogroups or at least their HVR 1 and HVR 2 of similarly aged human specimens from the Near East, West Asia and North Africa? Looking at your faeces might tell you about your health status but it doesn't say much about the health status of others.

More studies are needed to find origin points for all haplogroups found in Europe, North Africa, West Asia or the Near East particularly the last two considering that is where all the ancestors of all Europeans of all ages, Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and modern come from, their Eden. Disappointing all people are doing is just going around in circles. We know from the murdered man from Cheddar in England that a man of his age was U5a, but do we know where Cheddar man came from, where his people came from and how long had they been in that part of Europe prior to Britain separating from the European mainland. No, we know is his approximate age, how long ago he died, that he was disfigured facially, that he was murdered, his flesh removed and probably eaten and his mtDNA haplogroup.

Don't you think you are being a little hard on the tiny country of Luxembourg? How can it afford to conduct a major study of ancient DNA across half the world? I'm impressed that it has come up with one aDNA result. That is on a par with Ireland and England.

I think we can take it as read that Europeans are genetically a sub-set of Africans, if we accept (as I do) the "out-of-Africa" position. We can also take it as read that the overwhelming majority of that sub-set did not arrive direct from Africa, since the Mediterranean was too great a barrier for so long, but came into Europe via the Near East.

Some input came along a more northerly trajectory from Asia (such as Uralic-speakers and Huns), and it's an open question whether any input from the Near East came via North Africa in the Neolithic, but the Near East was the chief staging post.

"More studies are needed to find origin points for all haplogroups found in Europe, North Africa, West Asia or the Near East particularly the last two considering that is where all the ancestors of all Europeans of all ages, Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and modern come from, their Eden."

All haplogroup origin times and places in the academic literature are educated guesses at best, and they will likely always remain that way. What is really important isn't the origin time and place of haplogroups but the proportion of haplogroups in a specific age and place, and it is much more possible to scientifically find out than origin time and place (thanks to statistics and ancient DNA studies).

Wondering where they are getting U5a from, as they didn't check for any of the substitutions specific to U5a, only 16192 and 16270 which define U5. Did I miss something in the paper? It's available on academia.edu now, btw.

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